


Night Like This

by Lumieres



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst with a Happy Ending, DJ Otabek Altin, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Slow Burn, Time Travel Elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-30
Updated: 2017-05-26
Packaged: 2018-10-25 07:39:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10759752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lumieres/pseuds/Lumieres
Summary: Who R U?But the thing is, it isn’t his handwriting. He writes in jagged cursive, the letters hard to read, while these words are written in a childish scrawl just below his wrist.And it isn’t written Kazakh, but Russian.(An AU loosely based off Your Name)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thisbeautifuldelirium](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisbeautifuldelirium/gifts).



> a couple of warnings: explicit smoking, take care when reading slightly bad-boy Otabek. 

Otabek wakes up with a headache and aching shoulders, the last of his dream scattering away from his sluggish thoughts, and a phone vibrating furiously beside him. He doesn't look at it automatically, still drenched in the feeling of his dream. 

Somehow, it’s a culmination of the morning sun after a long night, the happiness of climbing to the top of the mountain and the freedom that comes with being alone.

He smiles to himself in wonder as he swings his legs over the bed, groggy and exhausted. He rolls his head back and forth, stretching out the stiffness from the night before. With a quiet huff, he grabs the nearest t-shirt and swings it over his head, scrunching his nose as he gets whiff of his own body odour. With his other free hand, his fingers wrap around a cold aluminium bottle and he sprays the deodorant haphazardly around him, drenching himself in a smell better than his own.

His phone vibrates for what seems like the thirteenth time, so he finally turns to read the message. When the words wouldn't come into focus, he realises with increasing dread that his eyes are super dry. Dry in a way that he’s slept with his contacts in _again_.

Cursing himself beneath his breath for having a night like that _again_ , he stumbles to the bathroom. He slams his hands against the side of the basin, fingers fumbling for the faucet. The coldness of the water shakes off a bit of his fatigue. Then, he slowly tries to remove his contact lenses and drips eyedrops into his eye, regaining a little bit of sight he thought he had lost forever.

The knock on his apartment door catches him off guard.

“Hold on a second,” he says, his voice cracking over the words. He knocks over an assortment of eyecare equipment and silently resigns himself to the fact that he needs to put his glasses on.

But then, he manages to catch his ashen faced reflection and flinches. How did he get like this?

Along the side of his face are bruises that he hadn’t felt when he woke up, but as he traces over them, he winces. Then, just across his jawline is a smear of black letters. He angles his head as he tries to see what it is.

In the corner of his eye, he can see that it’s just an exact replica of the words on his arm.

_Who R U? _

But the thing is, it isn’t his handwriting. He writes in jagged cursive, the letters hard to read, while these words are written in a childish scrawl just below his wrist.

And it isn’t written Kazakh, but _Russian_.

Despite his confusion lacing his already hazy mind, the incessant knocking makes him pull away from those thoughts.

Hastily, he rubs the black mark off his face and grabs the face towel as he heads towards the door of his apartment. Another knock later and the door frame shudders from the force. Otabek swears that the door is going to fall.

He swings open the door and stares at the man on the other side, blinking back hazy events of the night before. Had it been the night before? How much did he have to drink? He could barely remember what he had done, _if_ he had done anything the previous night. He might’ve just wallowed in the darkness of his apartment.

“Morning,” Phichit says, a little _too_  cheerily for the hour. He's wearing a large bomber jacket and a cap on backwards, a lopsided grin on his face. 

“Good morning,” Otabek murmurs with a loud groan. He isn't a morning person. He is _not_ a morning person. "What time is it anyway?" 

"You totally missed my text didn't you," Phichit says with a loud sigh. "You totally  _missed_ it. I thought we were friends. We planned to study this early, remember?" 

“Did you want to — come in for coffee?” He suggests lamely. But the lingering thought of the words on his arm still pains him enough that he doesn’t register Phichit’s answer. 

Otabek rubs his face with the face towel and tosses it carelessly on the sofa by the television. His apartment is a small studio apartment located a little out of the way from everything in Almaty. But the rent is cheap enough and his landlords are relatively nice when he doesn’t pay his rent on time. So he puts up with it. Having his own place to crash is better than living with his parents who question his life decisions almost every day. 

They wonder when he's going to do something with his life, but everything's just a stand-in, a prologue of sorts until he can finally get out of Almaty, until he can find himself another job.

He grabs his round tortoiseshell glasses and gently nudges them up the bridge of his nose with his knuckles, relieved to see the world less blurry than it had been seconds before.

Phichit sniffs the air. “You should lay off on the deodorant.”

The man pushes apart the curtains, letting light flood into the dank apartment. Otabek gasps at the sudden stream of light, cowering in the corner as his body takes longer to adjust.

“What did I take last night?” Otabek groans, the headache still lingering.

“I don’t know,” is Phichit’s non-committal reply. He shrugs dramatically and begins tottering around the apartment. Soon enough, the kettle is boiling. “Do you need some pain killers?”

He fumbles through his bag slung over his shoulder, far too stylish and far too expensive for Otabek’s taste. He tosses some pills and Otabek takes them dry, giving him a relieved sigh.

“It was certainly a strange night though,” Phichit says. He grabs the instant coffee, though a little reluctantly and pours the hot water. “You pretty much forgot every skill you had.”

His head snaps at the last sentence and he says, a little hastily, “What happened?”

“Chiu,” Phichit raises his hands up. Sometimes, it’s hard to figure out what he means most of the time, with the way he slips into Thai slang halfway through a sentence. But after a couple of years of friendship, Otabek’s picked up a bit to figure out what he’s saying: _chill_. “Nothing made happened.”

“It was — the gig last night, wasn’t it?” the memories don’t flood back as he hoped it would. He was _meant_ to be DJing for one of the biggest music festivals of the year in Almaty. It was going to pay him well.

“Oh, now the prince remembers,” Phichit chuckles. He opens the fridge and sniffs the carton of milk, scrunching his nose. “I don’t get paid enough for this.”

Otabek opens his mouth to protest, “I don’t think I pay you at all to manage my affairs —“

“That’s the point,” Phichit throws his hands in the air, slamming the fridge door shut.

He tears open the carton of milk and the milk glugs as he empties it down the drain.

“I did get a couple of good pictures of you. You were —” he holds out his phone, angling the pictures at him. He then finishes with a grin, “Pretty wild.”

Otabek moves forward, hesitant. He stares at pictures that seem unfamiliar to him. The person moving, the poses, the tongue poking from his mouth, the poses. Even his dancing _isn’t_ his particular style. The Otabek dances is that he lets the bass and beats shudder through him. The man on screen seems to let the music glide and his lines are for more elegant that Otabek’s would ever be.

“That’s —  me?” his voice wavers questioningly as he holds his hand out, waiting for Phichit’s permission. The Thai man passes the phone. He swipes through Phichit’s photos of the night before, trying to piece together what little memories he has of it.

“Yeah,” Phichit says. He fidgets with his with the earring in his left ear. “And you basically forgot _all_ your gear.”

“I forgot all my gear,” Otabek repeats dumbly. He runs his fingers through his hair, his chest constricting. That gig was meant to pay his rent for the month. He was already behind.

And then it was going to pay for his tuition.

“Please tell me they at least got a replacement,” Otabek says, his voice barely above a whisper. The dread culminates into one overarching emotion of _panic._

“Look, I covered you. Said your equipment was bust.”

Otabek sighs in relief. “Thanks Phichit, you’re a great friend.”  

“You’re lucky they were pretty kind about it, but if this happens again, I don’t know …”

“It won’t happen again.”

But Otabek has no idea what happened last night.

And he hopes on his life that it would never happen again.

 

* * *

 

Otabek walks beneath the leafy greenery down a large road, his thoughts lingering on the words on his wrist. He hasn’t had the heart to rub it off yet, not until he’s figured out the source of whoever wrote it on his arm. 

However, _‘wrote’_ is a severe understatement.

Etched is a better substitution.

Around the words are red inflamed skin, elements of a person who is jittery and unsure.

His mind came up with a thousand alternatives reasons for this, with the best one being a person from the mosh pit trying to get into bed with him. Despite living a loud lifestyle during the night, Otabek had always considered DJing an artistic outlet. The people listening to his music, his remixes, they’re all spectators and would prefer to keep them out of the safe space he calls home.

There was one night, however, where he had experimented. Taken a boy with him home, but the movements were awkward and clumsy, and by the end of it, Otabek was too embarrassed to even look at his face the morning after. It had been the first time he had ever done something like that with a complete stranger, and it probably is the last.

A couple of stray memories of St Petersburg play over his mind. It's strange how vivid the memories feel in his brain, as if he had been lucky enough to walk the streets and get lost in the history. But the thing was, he had never _been_ to St Petersburg before. He had never seen the canals in person, he had never walked the brightly lit street, and yet it felt like he had.

The memories exuded wanderlust and a longing for home that Otabek had never felt before, after living in Almaty all his life.

He shoulders the door open to his favourite bakery, a small corner shop tucked away down a small lane behind his university. There’s ornate railings that surround it with a small courtyard for people who wish to brave the cold weather. A couple brave souls sit, rugged up with their laptops around them. The coffee is cheap for a student and tastes like watered down sweat, but it’s good enough to spur any desperate student on for the day.

The waitress gives him a friendly smile as he takes his scarf off, staring at the menu behind. If Phichit was here, he would scrunch his nose and then begin his journey to try everything on the menu, trying to find something that tastes good.

Then he’d say a little too loudly, to Otabek’s embarrassment, “I don’t understand why you come here.”

And he’d pick the next item on the list without thinking.

“Mah mey dag,” he would say, which Otabek’s learnt to mean a more vulgar way of saying _‘even the dog won’t eat it’_.

But Phichit isn’t here today. 

He orders the usual: a long macchiato with a bit of sweet bread. He then shuffles off to the corner of the café by the window and pulls out his laptop. It’s battered from all the times he’s carted it along to gigs but it still works.

And he’s glad.

He opens his favourite text editor and the command prompt, blackness across his slick screen. He spends a little too long trying to untangle the wire from his headphones before he plugs himself in. The list of assignments he needs to complete today is numerous, but he’s always been meticulous with his work, planning when it needs to be done. Procrastination, even though a skill he has mastered, is not necessary today.

With the dull throb of lo-fi music, he begins solving the computation problem.

It’s not until two hours later, buried in deep segmentation faults and errors, that he closes everything and finds himself searching through vk, searching for _something_ that could identify the reason why he has St Petersburg on his mind. He then catches a flier, an advertisement for a performance in St Petersburg. Some sort of ballet performance.

Ballet isn’t particularly _his_ style, but he looks anyway out of sheer curiosity.

A young prodigy, at least in his second year of university, catches his interest.

 _Yuri Plisetsky_.

Why does the name seem so familiar? The kind of familiar that’s on the tip of your tongue, the word that you could never quite get but describe everything else associated with it.

For the strangest reason, as he scrolls further, uncovering his Instagram account and even, to a certain point, his vk profile — his public persona, his private one is layered behind all kind of access. He’s even got himself a fan club.

Then, all of a sudden and to his surprise, he could describe what Yuri feels like. In a world he’s built of logic and facts and figures, this makes absolutely no sense at all.

But at the same time, it makes _all_ the sense in the world.

Yuri feels like _home_.

* * *

In the corner of his apartment, where the shadow meets the evening sun, Otabek hunches over his laptop. He scratches his chin, feeling the uneven stubble across, as he hums, finger pointed to the air.

Again, he hums, testing between layers of semitones and shifting a couple of chord progressions. Just enough to make Chopin’s prelude _different_ but not enough to take away the sheer essence of it. His tiny piano is his salvation, the tester of tunes.

A hesitant _G_  gets played, but it rings true with the other instruments he’s added.

With a smile, he guesses it’s a guilty pleasure, cutting the time each crotchet goes, making some of the piano muffled, adding a small beat to classical pieces.

In the corner of his eye, he sees new words on his arm. It says, “ _make more” _

* * *

It isn’t the first time he’s woken up, laced in sweat and disoriented that week. He grabs his notebook beside his bed, meticulous in counting what exactly he’s been doing before the blackouts, before the disappearances in memory.

Four. There are four tallies scratched onto the paper. Each a mark of the days he’s lost that month. Four days out of the eleven that have passed. The thought hits him like a dagger, digging deeper into his stomach.

Pain ripples up his back in a way that signifies that he’s slept funny. The blackouts are also getting longer as well. At first, he’d lose a couple of hours of the day and he could continue like normal, after a period of adjustment.

Now, days are lost in the overwhelming arc of his short life.

It takes him a while to find the pen, hidden beneath his mattress on the ground — a makeshift bed for a poor university student. He scratches another tally, completing the gate and chews the side of his cheek.

Otabek can barely focus.

He scrambles to his feet, calm, meticulous _university_ student Otabek threatening to burst through. There’s has to be an explanation for all of this, there’s an explanation for all these holes in his memory. 

And for maybe the fifth time that week, Otabek stares at his reflection in the shabby bathroom mirror. He drags his fingers over his face, nails scratching at his skin as he tries to _breathe_. Tries to come up with a logical conclusion to the sudden madness that’s spiralling in his life.

“What’s happening to me?” Otabek murmurs to his reflection in a desperate hope that it’s going to reply. Of course, it doesn’t. It just stares back at him, with rabid, bloodshot eyes and bags signifying he hadn’t slept well for a very long time.

Along his arm, he sees a scribble in the same handwriting as before. _Thought you could use a good time_

He thumbs his phone and squeezes his eyes shut.

When he hears Phichit answer with a, “Ja?” he lets out a shaky breath.

“Nong,” Phichit says, concern lacing his voice — a small nickname he’s given Otabek over the years. He never quite figured out what this one meant, but it’s something to do with his age. “Are you okay?”

In the end, he just hangs up, unable to face the reality, unable to tell his friend.

This is his own problem and he’ll deal with it alone.

* * *

 

That afternoon, he buys a notebook — one of the cheapest ones he can find in his local bookstore that smells of cinnamon and oranges.  

The woman by the counter is an elderly woman, still wearing her hair curlers and a large grin on her face. At first glance and from their interactions, she’s the type of woman to know all the gossip, to know every single piece of fact, fiction or true.

“I heard,” she says with a large, toothy grin. “I heard that you’ve been letting loose a little lately.”

Otabek wishes that the ground would consume him. He musters what he hopes is a smile — a little too sad, a little too frightened and very tired — before he leaves her. He doesn’t wait until he gets home to start writing in the notebook.

He pulls out the pen from his backpack and sits down on a park bench by the side of the road. He licks the ballpoint with impatience, scribbling at the paper until blue damages the first page.

There, he starts writing in his perfect calligraphy. He writes in Russian, for the sake of the person on the other side. He crosses out some words in hard lines, pen cutting through the cheap paper. He rips it out meticulously, taking the remnants from the spiral binder and rolling it up into a ball.

He starts again, this time, slower.  

Name: Otabek Altin

Age: 22

Studying: Comp Sci

Side Job: DJ/remixer  

Hates: pears

Note for the person inhabiting my body: please write what you do here. If you have any questions for me, write them in this book and I will write a reply.

My passcode is this — 

He draws his passcode in a scribble, with lines and arrows connecting the dots. 

Look at my google calendar for events that are happening. I’ll write you a tutorial how to use my equipment, but I’ll mostly have everything mixed already in case the first time we swapped ever happens again.

Then, he leaves his final message:

_What’s your name?_

* * *

For the next couple of weeks, they interact like this.

His fingers trace the name that’s written beneath his question.

_ Yuri Plisetsky.  _

That’s his name.

That’s the name of the person who’s inhabiting his body.

He has clear logs of events that have passed and is able to keep a cap on what Yuri’s doing. Yuri, despite himself, enjoys going to clubs and drinks a lot.

He swears a lot, he’s feisty and he’s angry. Everything he never truly expected of a ballet dancer. He expected Yuri to be arrogant and snobby. Perhaps he’s both, but the person he gets snippets of through the small journals doesn’t seem like it.

Yuri Plisetsky isn’t a student, but performs ballet professionally. He’s afraid for the day that he won’t be able to perform anymore, but he pushes those thoughts aside. Living in the future, he says, is a “fucking waste of time”.

He’s twenty-two and at the height of his career. In a couple of weeks, he’s going to be touring the world.

While Otabek is here, in Almaty, a world away. In a place where he wonders why Phichit chose to move to, out of all the places in the world. A place that he can’t quite figure himself out. A place where, even though it’s his home town, he feels like there’s a noose around his neck, tightening each year he stays here.

While Yuri performs and dances for audiences around the world, Otabek works and studies, _rinse and repeat._ He’ll sit in the fire escape of his apartment block with a beer in hand, waiting just _waiting_ for the day some sort of earthquake happens that disrupts the perfectly linear trajectory of his life.

But part of him smiles wistfully, thinking that Yuri Plisetsky _is_ the earthquake.

* * *

  _I can’t tell what your preferences are. Do you prefer men or women? I know it’s not always so — black and white. Clearly you dress up like you’re going to join a gang all the time. Unless you are already part of a gang then, holy fuck, I’ve probably been missing all of your meetings. But your bloody tortoiseshell glasses make me confused. They don't match your style at all._

Otabek laughs when he reads that message. The laugh catches him unaware and he looks over his shoulder, just to see if anyone’s watching. He finds himself doing this more often now, wondering if anyone would think him weird, grinning at his phone like an idiot.

It’s hard, when you live in the shadows to finally know that someone’s paying attention to you.

* * *

_ Did you know that Russia has a larger surface area than Pluto? So fucking weird.  _

Autumn fades into winter and the cold comes with biting fury. But Yuri’s messages keep him warm. He looks to the fading sunlight in the distance as he rides his motorbike to a quiet place in Almaty. When he gets to one of his favourite places, he sits down on the grass, snug in his leather jacket and scarf. He holds the tattered book in his hand, with one too many coffee stains from Yuri spilling something over it and the folded pages.

The part of his life that he’s forgotten is _here_ among the pages, pages in which he’s lost himself among day after day, reading each message with a smile. There’s a certain headiness to it, a certain static quality. A _beauty_ perhaps.

In his mind, he guesses that _this_ is what it’s like to be in love. 

* * *

_Guess what I learnt today! _

Yuri hardly talks about his job, almost as if he’s ashamed of his job. He’ll always end up talking about the weird facts he’s learnt. Today it’s the fact that there’s more fake flamingos in the world than there are real ones.

“What are you smiling at?” Phichit says with a lopsided grin.

Otabek’s eyes widen a second and he looks at his hands.

“Alright, don’t answer me,” Phichit says with an eyeroll. It isn’t that he doesn’t want to tell Phichit, it’s more that he doesn’t know what to do anymore. His thoughts are a thousand stars, strung over the sky, and he, the astronomer is unable to focus on a single one.

First, he’s wondering what it’s like to hold someone’s hand. He’s wondering what it would be like to hold _Yuri’s_ hand. A man who seems so far away, yet _here_ and _tangible_ at the same time.

He then wondered what it would be like to kiss someone. Truly kiss someone you loved. He had done it before, a couple of girls here and there at parties, but he never enjoyed it.

He then wonders what it would be like to kiss Yuri.

Phichit laughs. “You're never this happy. Is it the end of the world?" 

* * *

  _Do you think all this shit happens because of fate? Do you think we’re destined to know each other? Properly, I mean. Like, shit, are we meant to meet each other in the future? _

The thing is, Otabek doesn’t always answer Yuri’s questions. He doesn’t always write a reply. He’ll read it repeatedly, keeping the message to himself — a secret he can’t bare the share to the world.

But this once, he just writes.

 _I hope we do._   

* * *

_ The ratio of my messages to your response is probably 8:1. Is that how ratios work? Damn you’re rubbing off on me with all your maths. I even actually remember a bit, which is weird as fuck. Mila was wondering how I managed to do a calculation in my head and I couldn’t even fucking answer her._

* * *

_ I learnt this the other day — there’s this whale okay, who has been looking for a mate for over two decades, but his pitch is so different from the others, no one ever responds. How fucked up is that? _

_ No one should be alone. _

_ Not even you. _

* * *

_ Are you always this sad?  _

He wonders what those words mean when he looks at himself in the mirror in the morning. His shoulders hurt from the gig the night before. The bags beneath his eyes are large and plentiful, but each thought of his leads back to _Yuri Plisetsky._

He can’t seem to get him out of his mind. Holding his trembling hands up in the air, he smiles forlornly to himself.

Intangible and incomplete would be words he feels right now. 

* * *

Otabek wakes to wilted roses on his bedside table and _Nocturne_ by Frederick Chopin playing on his speakers. He checks to see how many times it’s been repeated and the number is well into the hundreds. Nocturne, he thinks with curiosity. Out of all the pieces he could be playing, this sounds kind of strange. He would prefer waking up to  _Goldberg Variations_ or maybe even  _Romeo and Juliet_. 

Then he turns to see the amount of times Yuri’s listened to his remixes with a wistful smile on his face.

_ Happy valentine’s day, I guess. ❤  _

Otabek thumbs the message, reading it over and over again. _I guess?_ His heart flutters in his chest and his knees go wobbly.

He walks to grab a small cup from his sparsely filled cupboard. He fills it up with water and a petal falls from the rose as he picks it up from the table and places it in the cup.

The rose sits there, a remnant of Yuri Plisetsky and the mysteries that come with him. 

* * *

Almaty in the early hours of the morning is quiet. The kind of sickly quiet that sucks the air from your lungs. Save for the low rumble of passing cars, Otabek is completely alone.

Just him and the darkness of the night to shelter his secrets.

He pushes a cigarette from the packet and pulls out a lighter. Small sparks catch on his hand as he thumbs it, taking a little while for a flame to burst. Absent-mindedly, he wonders if it’s time to get a new lighter. It probably is.

Once the flame smoulders in front of him, he lifts it to his mouth and sucks in a deep breath. The smoke settles on the back of his throat and into his lungs. With his free hand, he massages the back of his neck, easing the anxiety and stress from him. It oozes like the smoke from his mouth, still clinging to his clothes, like a vice that won’t let go. 

Some people say that being alone is the best time to come up with solutions to your deepest problems, confronting your fears. After long motorbike ride to a neglected part of the city, he stands on what feels like the edge of the world, waiting, and thinking. Like he always does. Beneath the silence that cloaks him is a storm of thoughts, of questions, of _worry_. The future is uncertain, but at least, here, he can plan for it.

So, he wonders if the answer will just _come_ to him, wonders if making this decision will be the end of him.

He leans on his motorbike, finger tracing its outline as he looks out to the glittering stars. They mockingly wink back at him, spires of intangible dreams as the wind scatters his aspirations away. He sucks in another breath of smoke and another, until he’s left with a small stub of the cigarette, letting the final smoke disperse around him in a heavy sigh. He smashes it on his jeans and brushes the trail of ashes from the denim.

He thinks he’s fallen in love with Yuri Plisetsky. A man who he’s never met. A man who could possibly be _himself_.

And that frightens him.

His last message from Yuri is uncharacteristically short, written on his arm, and uncharacteristically less furious.

All it says is:  _I’m sorry._

* * *

The lines of code mean nothing to him. Fully plugged in, concentration making his shoulders tense, he taps at the screen, beginning the awful debugging process. A sharp poke from Phichit makes him repress a growl.

He over his laptop screen and tugs out his headphones, keeping his expression carefully blank. “What?”

“Are you dating someone?”

His stomach drops and he shakes his head, unable to tell the truth. Unable to say that he might have fallen in love with someone imaginary. Or the fact that he might’ve fallen in love with someone who doesn’t know who he is, or the fact that he’s simply made up this affair.

“Or were you dating someone and they broke up with you?”

“I —“

“Nong,” Phichit prods his chest with another digit. “Don’t lie, I know when you’re lying.”

“Maybe?” Otabek raises his shoulders. A heart is a heavy burden, he realises with ever increasing anxiety. And he’s fallen in love with Yuri Plisetsky over and over again with their strange way of communication. “You’ll think I’m crazy.”

“I already think you’re weird,” Phichit says. “So, what’s another story?”

Otabek swallows his pride. “His name is Yuri Plisetsky.”

“You met the ballet dancer?” Phichit’s eyebrows go up as fast as a flash of lightning and he leans forward, his chin on hand. “What’s he like? Fiery? _Dreamy?”_ Then he squeaks. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you blush before, Beka.”

He stutters a response. “No, I didn’t meet him exactly. I don’t really know what’s happening to me.”

Phichit tilts his head. “You haven’t met him and you’re in love with him. That could be creepy.”

Perhaps he’s been confusing happiness for a chance to escape _this_ bubble that he’s been in forever. He wonders why he didn’t just escape immediately after graduating high school. He wonders why he didn’t choose a university somewhere else.

Most of it was because of money and his general lack of it. Money was the heavy cycle that kept people where they were, kept people wishing for something _more than this_.

Otabek pulls out his notebook with Yuri’s handwriting and tries his best to explain himself. He knows none of this makes any sense and when he finishes with heavy eyelids of shame, Phichit doesn’t answer. The tension as thick as honey as Otabek swears he can see the neurons firing.

“He certainly exists,” Phichit murmurs. “Your story is outlandish. But — why not give it a chance?”

The sentence takes Otabek by surprise. He straightens his back and watches Phichit carefully. Each word he says now will be heavily scrutinised, he can tell.

With the support of friend he doesn’t deserve, Phichit gives him a large smile, “Maybe you should visit him.” 

* * *

Otabek doesn’t fly to St Petersburg directly. Instead, he chooses to take a train from Moscow. It gives him enough time to recalibrate his thoughts before he sees the ballet. His fingers tightly grip the mixtape he’s made — a homage to the Frederick Chopin’s preludes with modern flare.

He slings his backpack over his shoulder and with his other hand, undoes the plastic wrap from his sandwich. He’s dressed simply — a black leather jacket over a loose fitting black t-shirt. Hidden behind aviators, he lifts the sandwich to his mouth and sighs.

The train shudders to a stop, rusted doors slide open and he’s there.

He’s _here_ in St Petersburg. The one place in the world he had never thought he would travel to.

But he’s here.

He’s here, out of his heavily embedded curiosity. Out of the idea that perhaps he could meet this person who’s changed his life in bizarre and extraordinary ways.

The air is slick with anticipation as he wades through the crowd. His fingers grip his phone and he takes a couple of snaps, ready to send to his parents who are giddy with excitement.

 _“St Petersburg?_ ” he remembers them exclaiming when he tells them.  

They had never been out of Kazakhstan and it doesn’t look like they ever will. People fall into the heavy routine of life and as they get older, the idea of change doesn’t seem as alluring.

But there’s one thing his father said to him, under the blanket of stars and heavy storm clouds, that he’s never forgotten. “You’ve got talent, you’re intelligent. Make a name for yourself.”

And he’s taken those words one step at a time.

Perhaps St Petersburg is just another stepping stone.

The performance starts in a couple of answers. He tries to keep his head down, away from meeting anyone’s gaze. People moved a little faster here and with more urgency. He tries to make his way to the Aurora Ballet Hall, following Google maps to an excessive amount.

After walking for what seemed like an eternity, he stands outside. Despite all the reasons why he shouldn’t _be_ here, he’s _here_. He’s _here_ , waiting for a performance by a man who he doesn’t even know personally. Waiting for a performance by a man who will probably think he’s crazy if he hasn’t experienced the same thing.

But sometimes, Otabek Altin decides, you must be brave. 

* * *

Otabek swears he’s never seen such beauty. He’s drawn to the petit blond man, hair done up in a bun, as he glides across the stage. To describe him as _elegant,_ would be an understatement It wouldn’t even come close to it.

He breathed the art, he _lived_ it. Anyone could see the passion wafting from him and to the audience. There’s a little world that lives inside of him and Otabek is an explorer, ready to circumnavigate the mysteries that _Yuri Plisetsky_ exudes.

At the conclusion of the piece, Otabek feels his heart flutter a little.

He wants to show Yuri his regards, so he quietly makes his way towards the dressing room. He knows stages like the back of his hand, after performing so many times as well. In the end, the layout is always really similar and he finds Yuri Plisetsky’s dressing room.

He stops outside, fixes his jacket and breathes out heavily, before he knocks on the door. The door swings open, revealing Yuri Plisetsky, his hair messy and long enough that it just sits above the small of his back.

“What the fuck, Mila?” is a disgruntled response that comes from the small man Yuri’s eyes narrow and he’s about as prickly as a cat ready to pounce. “Who are you?” Then he bursts into motion, like a clap of lightning, hiding protectively behind the door. “How the _fuck_ did you get here?”

Otabek wants to say that he really enjoyed the performance, but his surprise and fear glues his mouth shut.

 “Do you _fucking_ speak?”

All that grace and elegance on the stage dissipated the moment Yuri stepped off and became himself. The Yuri Otabek had come to know through their interactions.

“I’m calling security.” Yuri turns around.

“Wait!” His Russian is certainly rusty, with a hint of an accent bleeding through, but Yuri understands him well enough. “Otabek Altin. I’m Otabek Altin. Don’t we know each other?”

“The fuck?” Yuri’s still looking as confused as ever.

Otabek’s mouth goes dry as he blinks back at Yuri, his face an ever increasing shade of red. The dread sinking in his body and making his stomach flip. His hands begin shaking next as the silence between the two of them draws out.

He can’t say anything without sounding like he’s crazy.

Maybe he _is_ crazy. Maybe he’s made all of this up. Somehow, he had seen Somehow, he had seen Somehow, he had seen _Yuri Plisetsky_ online and made everything up for the last couple of months.

How lonely had he felt to have made up another human?

In fact, how lonely must he have felt to make up another human who actually _existed?_ And then lost days to thinking he was that man?

He’s a fucking weirdo. He wants to hide, he wants to fold in on himself, never face the world again.

Otabek kneads his temple and lets out a short, shaky breath. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

He swings his backpack around and unzips it, pulling out the mixtape he made for Yuri.

“You were golden tonight,” Otabek whispers as he hands it over and he says, as an afterthought and trying to rectify whatever mess he had made. “Just a gift from a fan.”

Yuri takes it with curiosity, “Thank you?”

Otabek looks back down at his hands, then he squints. “How old are you?’’

“Twenty,” Yuri replies.

The Yuri Plisetsky he had known is twenty-two. His stomach sinks, and now he’s stumbling back with shock and despair. The pit of darkness takes him as he spirals towards the centre of self-loathing.

He’s certainly made this person up.

“I’m sorry I wasted your time,” he whispers and turns around suddenly, movement all jerky. But in fact, he’s more sorry that he’s wasted his own time.

* * *

Raw hands against bricked walls. Loud smashes. Grunts. Anger comes in tidal waves, all consuming, and all drowning. He doesn’t even care when the pain registers in his body after each punch, he doesn’t even care when his knuckles are bleeding heavily. He doesn’t care when he tastes blood on his lips.

He doesn’t care about much anymore.

Hands grab him and a voice that sounds so familiar it hurts. He turns to see the smaller man, gripping him with all his might. Hurt eyes stare back at Yuri Plisetsky. 

"What?" Otabek says, in the wrong language. He swaps into Russian, but all he wants to do is to curl in on himself. "What do you want?"

"You're going to fucking kill yourself," Yuri says. 

Otabek doesn't say anything to that.

"Please just let go of me," Otabek mutters. Yuri, stunned into silence, lets go. Otabek studies the younger man with tense shoulders and knuckles that burn with pain. "Why are you here?" 

"Strange as fuck as it sounds," Yuri says. He stuffs his hands into the pockets of his parka. "I don't know. It's stupid." 

Otabek scoffs. "You don't know what stupid means." 

"Well," Yuri shrugs his shoulders dramatically. "It's dumb. I feel drawn to you. Somehow. Like I'm meant to know you."

Otabek freezes. 

"Weird, isn't it?" Yuri says. "Sorry, you also dropped this." He pulls out Otabek's tattered notebook from his bag. "I read it. Out of curiosity, thinking I'd never find you again. I don't know if you're a creep or if this is fate. But -" 

He shrugs. 

"You went out to find me because you wanted answers." Otabek concludes. His eyes flutter closed and his heart stills in his chest. Perhaps, Yuri is the sun after a rainy day, after all. "Have you been losing days as well?"

Yuri looks at his feet, scuffing at the floor, then he nods, slowly at first and then more vigorously, pain rippling through him, "Yeah." Then, his voice barely above a whisper, Yuri asks, "You're him, aren't you?"

A shy smile threatens to burst from Otabek's mouth. They both study each other with the same amount of curiosity. Otabek holds out his hand, always the sentimental idiot who never rubs out anything important. On his wrist, faded, but not enough that Yuri can't recognise his own handwriting are the words: 

_ Who R U? _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> catch me @ [ tumblr ](lumieress.tumblr.com)  
> also save me because i keep writing new things and not finishing others


	2. Chapter 2

A dull throb begins to take over his hand, causing Yuri to jerk back in surprise. He holds his hands close to his face, angling them under the pale lights. Horror morphs into an expression of curiosity when he realises that there’s blood coating his knuckles, but quickly explodes into shock again.

“What the fuck?” he all but whispers as he stumbles back. He holds his hands to his eyes, examining the raw flesh. His eyes drift to Otabek’s wounded knuckles and he blinks again, but it's gone this time.

“Fuck,” Yuri breathes. He drags spidery fingers down his face and turns around, swallowing the anxiety and queasiness. The cold air does little to still his racing heart and fear that’s bubbling inside of him. All he wants to ask is _what the fuck is happening to me_?

But he doesn’t.

Of course he fucking doesn’t. He’s going mad and clearly this man opposite him is also as fucking mad as he is.

The two of them stand in amicable silence until Yuri decides he can’t stand it, so he blurts, “Otabek Altin. That’s what you said your name was, right?”

Otabek nods as they both study each other with ever growing curiosity: Yuri with distrust and fear, Otabek with disbelief.

“You’ve been losing days?” Otabek probes, with the hope of a person who really wants the truth. Behind his carefully guarded expression, his eyes sparkle with newfound hope — and is that the same anxiety Yuri’s feeling?

The question he asked is two loaded guns, one pointed his head and the other at his heart, finger hovering above the trigger. One answer defies logic and the other, all emotion he wants to feel. There’s a strange tug at his heart, as if they’re so irrevocably intertwined in each other’s fate, but Yuri doesn’t want to think about that. Thinking about that means that there is some stupid _bullshit_ meaning to life and that there is some stupid _bullshit_ belief that someone’s pulling the shots.

And if they are, then why _this_?

 “Yes,” he says, his voice barely audible. “Fuck _yes_.”

It feels good to say it aloud. It feels good to finally admit it to someone without their judgemental gaze staring back at him.

Otabek exhales in relief. He spins around, heel clacking on the cobblestone as he paces. He’s speaking in another language, with words similar, but foreign at the same time.

“You —“ Yuri starts as he swings his bag across to his front. He sits on his haunches and fishes out the notebook between his leopard print water bottle and ballet shoes. “You dropped this.”

Otabek turns around sharply, eyes widening as he stares at the tattered notebook in Yuri’s hands. “Did you read that?”

“Of course I fucking read it,” Yuri snaps. “Are you going to take it back or what?”

Otabek doesn’t move, his shoulders tight. “You read it all?”

“Yeah,” Yuri replies. “It has my hand writing and obviously my coffee stains.”

“But you’re twenty —“

“Weird, isn’t it?” Yuri cuts him off hurriedly. “Look, I have to get home. It’s already late.”

“Sorry,” Otabek says and he looks apologetic. It’s so strange how quickly he can swap between cool and suave, to what Yuri could best describe as a _lost puppy_.

“Why the fuck are you apologising?” Yuri narrows his gaze. He swings his backpack over his shoulder and ties his leopard print scarf around his neck.

“Sorry for keeping you outside past your curfew,” Otabek replies, but there’s this sly smirk that ghosts across his lips. Yuri looks again, and it’s gone.

“Look.” Yuri holds his hands up in peace. “I know this is fucking weird, but — I don’t think I’ve been _you_ yet.”

Otabek freezes. He doesn’t say anything, he just waits, sullen and silent.

Yuri continues, “If you know what I mean. But you’ve been me.”

Yuri pulls out another book from his bag. Its leather bound, with as many coffee stains on it like Otabek’s one. He knows that most of the damages on both books are probably _his_ fault, but at least his is more intact. That, and the notebook is of higher quality. “You asked me how old I was. And in your book. It says I’m twenty-two.” He pulls out the other book, with the cardboard cover and the backing that’s been long lost. “In mine, you’re twenty four.”

He stands on the spot as the realisation settles in.

“So, this means —“

“Eto pizdets*,” Yuri whispers. “Have we fucked up time and space? I read this. Does this mean I have to do whatever is _in_ this book?”

“I don’t know,” Otabek murmurs in response. “I _don’t_ know.” Then, he looks up, eyes glistening with some sort of madness, some newfound _hope_. “I guess we both are crazy then. Voices in our heads…”

Yuri nods. “Folie à deux.”

“Madness shared by two,” Otabek translates, but he arches an eyebrow. “You know French?”

“You wrote it in my book.”

“Ah.”

 “Here,” Yuri says as he gives Otabek the book. The man holds onto it awkwardly. The more Yuri watches him, the more he seems like he’s from a bygone era, with his roguish features and his leather jacket. He doesn’t seem like he belongs to this century. “You know, for a computer science student, you don’t really look the part.”

“I guess I do computer science because it’s practical,” Otabek replies. “I think I would like to have some sort of stability in life.”

Yuri nods, pulling out his phone, heart sinking as he realises the time. He has to be up early tomorrow for rehearsal and at this rate, he's probably going to get a good five hours of sleep - at best. “I have to go."

“Before you go —“ Otabek calls out, his voice takes a hopeful turn. When Yuri spins around, he’s fishing out a cigarette, lips around it as he lights it up. “Can I see you again?”

“Swing by the theatre after a performance,” Yuri responds, then he nods at the cigarette in his hand, “And that’s a fucking terrible habit. You should stop.”

Otabek grimaces at those words. Tugging the cigarette from his mouth, he shrugs, lifting a finger to his head in a small salute.

Yuri tilts his head back to the midnight sky, cupping his hands against his mouth and yells obscene words to no one in particular. Perhaps finally his life is going to pick up somehow. 

 

*this is fucked up 

* * *

 

From the window of his changing room, Yuri sees Otabek standing outside of the theatre at  _exactly_ their agreed meeting time. He plays with a coin across his knuckle, sitting on one of the metal poles. His broad shoulders and hardened gaze seems out of place in lieu of the theatre: a place full of hope. But there he is, head nuzzled to his chest, waiting with the patience of a monk.

With a tilt of his head, Yuri shoulders his way out of the changing room, passing Mila who calls out, “What’s the rush?”

“None of your business, fuckwit,” Yuri shouts back. When he bursts free from the building, he almost trips. His arms pinwheel in an attempt to steady himself, and during that split second, Otabek's by his side, a strong arm against his shoulder. 

As soon as Yuri's regained his balance, the man removes his aviators, eyes softening as he smiles at Yuri. “How are you?”

“Did you read it?” Yuri says instead. ‘How are you’ is a tame, boring question, one that he always tries to avoid. “The book.”

“I haven’t,” Otabek replies. He pulls out of his satchel and hands it back to Yuri, like a heavenly tome being returned to its owner. The way Otabek moves is with reverence, with care, like he’s afraid that if he moves too fast, he’ll shatter whatever moment is between them.

Yuri swears he’s more offended than he should be. “What the fuck? My life is fucking interesting, I swear.”

“They feel like spoilers to me,” Otabek says with a shrug.

“Keep it, so you still follow the same timeline,” Yuri says, pushing the book back. Otabek’s shoulders sag with defeat as he puts it into his satchel. He whispers quietly to himself, _so that you save me_. But he doesn’t want to say it aloud. The situation was mostly embarrassing on his behalf - something he'd prefer not to live again.

“Where are we off to?” Otabek asks. He shifts on his feet, a habit of impatience that seems to come more from spending time around Yuri than himself. Yuri  _knows_ Otabek from the notes that they've shared in his diary. The words he remembers most are: 

_ Still the flickering flame.  _

Those words encompass his philosophy: he's a man who lives like water, soft enough to sustain life, but hard enough to take it away easily. 

“I’ve a place,” Yuri grins. He grabs Otabek’s hand and leads him away with the vigour of a child showing a secret. Otabek has no choice to follow as they rush down the streets, following the canals and speckled buildings.

They stand on a bridge with rusted metal, sheltered by a couple of tall buildings that overlook the water’s edge. 

“I want to stay here for a while,” Yuri says as he swings his legs over and sits on the railing. Otabek leans next to him, and Yuri hates that he notices the way Otabek’s jaw tightens as he observes his surroundings. Yuri isn’t the type to notice people or even pay much attention to them, but he finds himself slowly picking apart Otabek, trying to figure him out, trying to figure out why the fuck the two of them have such a strange connection.

“At least until sunset,” Yuri replies, answering the unsaid question. He pulls out a flask from his pocket and holds it out to Otabek. “Want some?”

“What is it?” Otabek asks as he takes it.

Yuri’s eye sparkles mischievously. “Guess, you fuckwit.”

Otabek sniffs it and tilts his head back as he takes a drink. He passes it back to Yuri and rubs his hands together. “Tell me about yourself.”

“What’s there to say?” Yuri says after a swig. The alcohol burns against his throat, but it provides a little warmth on this cold day. “Living a life that’s only going to disappear.”

There it is again, Otabek’s jaw clenches at his words.

“But living a life nonetheless,” he replies.

“Beka,” Yuri says, his knuckles growing white from how hard he’s gripping the railing. “Why did you decide to come here? How did you know I existed?”

“You have a huge online presence.” He doesn’t finish it, and Yuri wants him to say more, but he’s a man of small sentences that explain everything he’s thinking. It’s strange to meet someone who’s so economical with their words.

“And you thought, why the fuck not?” Yuri says. “That’s pretty fucking brave of you.”

Otabek scoffs as he looks down at his hands.

“You don’t talk that much, do you?” Yuri tilts his head. “You don’t fucking talk that much at all.”

“What’s there to say?” Otabek angles his head to the side to mimic Yuri’s.

“You could fill up our silences, you know. I don’t want to be the only fucking person talking,” Yuri replies. “It’ll be strange, one sided. Like my fucking messages to you anyway.”

"Sometimes, you follow a hunch," Otabek murmurs. He stuffs his hands into his pocket to pull out his packet of cigarettes out of habit but stops midway. Rubbing his hands together, he exhales, his breath dancing in the air. "So I did." 

Yuri still doesn't quite understand him, but he's not sure if he'll ever understand him. "When do you leave?" 

"Tomorrow afternoon," Otabek replies to Yuri's dismay. He swings his leg over the railing and sits beside him, revealing his scuffed combat boots, his faded jeans with one too many holes. The leather beneath his armpits are worn, revealing the material. His scarf is also just one wash away from disintegrating.

“Don’t you own any new clothes?” Yuri says, dragging his eyes down Otabek’s body. “Let’s go shopping after the sunset.”

“Shopping?” Otabek repeats. His mouth opens but no words come out until finally, he figures out what he has to say. “I — I don’t have enough money.”

“I’ll buy it,” Yuri says simply.

“I — don’t think I can do that, Yura,” Otabek says, the words catching on his lips.

“Shut it.” Yuri presses a finger against Otabek’s lip. “I want to.”

Yuri pulls out his phone, finger gliding down the screen as he opens Instagram. He holds it against the setting sunlight that casts the world in an orange glow, but changes his mind. There will be thousands of sunsets he’ll see, but experiencing a sunset with the man beside him is limited.

So he spins his phone around and wraps an arm around Otabek’s shoulder. Bathed in the setting sun, he takes a picture to immortalise this moment.

“Do you mind?” Yuri asks, which causes Otabek to shake his head lightly.

The moment Yuri raises his gaze, he sees Otabek staring back at him, his lip tugging into something resembling a smile with a tinge of unhappiness.

“You’re not fucking enjoying yourself?” Yuri asks, scrunching his face. “It’s a nice sunset.”

He lets out a laugh that catches on his throat and _extremely_  manufactured. “Yeah.”

* * *

 

Otabek’s world is crumbling in on itself. The arena of his mind is unfurling itself like a fan, opening up emotions that he’s never experienced. His heart flutters, his knees are wobbly and most of all, he’s light headed. 

Yuri’s excitement is contagious. He touches him often, the kind that he doesn’t think through. He’ll bounce from place to place, throw his leg on surfaces, and grab Otabek by the arms, pushing him to places he wants him to be.

“Alright,” Yuri says, holding up a jacket. “I think this is your style.”

Otabek looks at the item of clothing: an exact replica of his current jacket. After having to tell Yuri multiple times that _no_ , he wouldn’t wear that leopard print hoodie, or _no_ , he wouldn’t wear leopard print sweatpants, the younger man finally seemed to figure out his type of fashion.

Otabek Altin’s fashion is the kind that rarely changes, if anything. It’s the one constant in his life because leather jackets are durable. He also has at least five of the same black t-shirts that he cycles through each week.

“Yeah,” Otabek nods.

“And I guess this is, as well?” Yuri says, holding up another plain hoodie. Otabek fingers the hoodie, his fingers brushing over Yuri’s for a split second. It takes all his effort to not flinch at their touch.

He focuses hard on the material. “It’s really soft.”

“Exactly,” Yuri replies.

Otabek’s gaze catches on the price. “I can’t afford this —“

“I said I’ll buy it for you," he says with growing impatience.

Otabek pushes the items back at Yuri and shakes his head. “I can’t accept this.”

Yuri rolls his eyes and walks towards the counter. Before Otabek can protest further or even make a scene, they’re standing outside of the shopping centre, with Yuri telling him to take his jacket off. Otabek numbly slips the new jacket on.

The material is weird on his skin, but give it time, and it’ll feel like _his_ again. He spins on his heel and shrugs. “How does it look?”

“One last thing,” Yuri says. The final item that snakes out of the plastic bag is a sandy scarf. He stands on the tips of his toes and winds the scarf around Otabek’s neck, the cashmere strangely soft on his neck.

He feels like he’s been punched in the gut. Winded, his face flushed from what he _hopes_ is the cold (but he knows it isn’t).

“Well fuck, do you like it or not?” Yuri throws his hands out. “You know, I’m trying really _fucking_ hard here.”

“Trying — what?” Otabek narrows his eyes a little, trying to read between the lines.

Yuri shakes his head. “Dumb fuck.”

But he doesn’t explain himself.

* * *

  
 

“You ever experienced St Petersburg nightlife?” Yuri asks as he walks backwards, flipping gun fingers to the air. His eyes widen when his foot catches on the footpath, enough so that he loses his balance. But Otabek is fast and the man grabs his arm, pulling him upright. Yuri just giggles and buries his face against Otabek’s chest, fingers fisting the fabric of his shirt.

“I haven’t really left Almaty,” Otabek replies, his voice a low rumble against the night.

“You _haven’t_?” Yuri exclaims. He flings his arms out and grabs Otabek by the shoulder, pushing him in the direction of one of his favourite clubs. It isn’t the weekend, but Thursday’s a themed day to drag people out in the middle of the week. “I _have_ to show you then.”

It’s only Otabek’s strong arm against his back that stops his feet from tangling his legs again. Yuri can barely contain his excitement. He’s happy and giddy and every word at once. His heart races in his chest, and the more he tries to find words to describe this situation, the more he fails.

Perhaps it’s the alcohol coursing through his veins. It’s weirdly accentuated, though, as if he’s had double the amount, but he tries to ignore it. Feeling like this is always good and he wishes he’d feel like this more often.

Suddenly, he’s a child again, showing someone his favourite places, showing someone places where people can have a _good_ time. Every so often, he’ll cast a glance back at Otabek, making sure he’s following — though it’s _weird_ that he keeps having to do that. Everything about the situation is off.

The club is small and unassuming, next to a corner shop that fixes laptops. A couple of stray people stumble out, covered in glitter and laughing. The bouncer stands with his feet shoulder width apart and a tight frown across his lips that jerks a little when Yuri greets him.

“Haven’t seen you for a while Yura,” the bouncer says, stamping him.

Yuri shrugs. “Finally got someone willing to come with me.” Yuri looks to the side to see Otabek fumbling for some identification. “Fuck, are you always so slow?”

“Safely stowing away all my identification, Yura,” Otabek replies as he holds it out for the bouncer to see.

The moment they step inside, the wave of music blasts past Yuri’s ears and a wolfish grin passes over his face.

Otabek stops slightly, almost as if to brace himself for the sudden change. His focus narrows with his eyesight and he’s looking at Yuri in a way that Yuri wishes he’d look at him forever. Yuri drags him towards the centre, where most people languidly dance around with drinks in hand and dull lights.

Yuri sways his lips and spins on his heel. Over his loose tank top is a hoodie that he slides off his body, wrapping it around Otabek as he brings him closer. The man opposite him just seems confused, but he moves along anyway.

“First time I went clubbing, I went with an illegal I. D. Probably one of the best experiences of my life,” Yuri says. He bites his bottom lip, eyes flashing as he takes Otabek in. God, he looks so fucking good in his new clothes. Parts of Yuri that he can’t quite control wishes that he could see those clothes off him.

“I’m sure we all did the illegal I. D. thing,” Otabek replies. He rolls his body to the beat, a dull throb in the background. But as the tempo changes, he scrunches his face. “What a weird remix.”

“What, do you think you can do better, DJ?” Yuri laughs as he ties his jacket around his waist.

Otabek arches an eyebrow. “Of course.”

There’s this effortless cool and confidence that reeks from him. Despite the fact that they’ve been out for so long, his hair is also still perfectly slicked and styled.

“Did you want something to drink?” Otabek asks, pulling from his thoughts.

 “Haven’t we had enough?” Yuri grins as he pulls him by his belt. His hands are around Otabek’s waist and he moves his hips towards him, watching at how Otabek’s breathing quickens.

Otabek nods. “I don’t think I drank that much though.”

“Perhaps it’s the two of us being _linked_ kind of thing,” Yuri replies. “Ever woken up with a headache you couldn’t quite explain?”

Otabek shrugs. “It’s usually because you decided that you wanted to go out.”

Yuri chuckles. “Sounds the fuck like me.” Yuri stands on the tips of his toes, a hand pressed on his shoulder and the other on the small of his back. “I want a good time. I fucking want a _good_ time tonight.”

Otabek’s Adams apple bobs down as he swallows. Yuri can practically feel the heat radiating off him. They’re both so close and moving in time. The world is there’s tonight and Yuri wonders if the heat he’s experiencing is because of the room, the alcohol or because of something else. It’s probably a mixture of all three.

As the beat drops, Yuri slides down to his knees and slowly drags his hand up Otabek’s leg before looking up at him. The light of the room halos Otabek’s face and Yuri’s more confused than ever. He had only just _met_ the man but now, he thinks he’s falling deeper and deeper in love.

What the actual fuck though? Does this kind of thing exist?

But at the same time, it’s almost as if he’s known the man forever.

But he has, hasn’t he?

Their destinies have been heavily intertwined for the last couple of years, with Otabek controlling parts of his days and Yuri controlling Otabek’s. It’s a strange kind of trade, and it’s enough to knock Yuri off course.

Otabek holds out a hand like the fucking gentleman he is and hoists Yuri back to his feet. Yuri had hoped he’d let him do something else, but one thing at a fucking time, he guesses.

That’s the moment where Yuri decides to be brazen. He licks his lips and smashes them against Otabek’s and suddenly, they’re kissing with enough intensity that Yuri can feel the heat rising in the room. He wishes every night could be like this.

For a split second, he sees himself and he feels as if his body isn’t his. When they pull apart, he’s staring back at Otabek again and the two of them look at each other with confusion, wondering the same thing.

Instead of addressing the unsaid question, Otabek asks another.  “Are you sure?”

“Sure as fuck,” Yuri grins and pulls in for another kiss, hoping that this could last forever.

Hoping that a night like this could progress further.

Hoping that this isn’t a dream.

Or if it is a dream, he’d never have the misfortune of waking up.

 

* * *

 

What follows is this kind of _flow_.

This isn’t the kind of logic he studies, but the kind of _flow_ that he gets when he’s DJing. He’s read articles about _flow_. The kind where you keep working and working, not really noticing how time passes.

Every artist wants to be in _flow_ , but Otabek doesn’t particularly want to be in it right now. He’s addicted to the hours he’s spending with Yuri, he’s addicted to learning more about this fiery, dark Russian who plummeted himself into his life and won’t leave.

Otabek carefully examines Yuri rising sunlight. His mind is still racing and refusing to slow down any time soon. He wants to stay here, he wants to _stay_ with Yuri. But in a couple of hours, he’ll be flying back to Almaty, flying back to his usual world of facts and figures and occasional shows.

The thought clings to him like an ill-fitting glove.

His clothes are still sweaty from the clubbing and the touching, his hair also matte and sticky. His legs are exhausted, his lips are still tingly but he’s so blissfully happy that he can ignore it all.

His phone vibrates, but he ignores all of the texts. They’re probably from Phichit, wondering how it’s all going, wondering if he’s managed to sweep _Yuri Plisetsky_ off his feet.

“The fuck are you thinking about?” Yuri asks, in a way that sounds like they’ve been friends for a while. Otabek stops to ask himself if they have been. The whole situation is fucking confusing, but a good kind of confusing, one that changes the perfectly boring arch of life he’s had for the last twenty two years.

Before he can think of a proper answer, his mouth answers, “You.”

At Yuri’s startled expression, Otabek mouth stutters for words. He grabs the nearest sentence his mind can muster and says, “Just, the fact that we’re here and the fact that this has happened to us.”

Yuri goes quiet for a moment. It’s the kind of uncharacteristic quiet, the kind that unsettles Otabek.

“What are _you_ thinking about?” Otabek tilts his head to the side.

“Sometimes,” Yuri whispers. He’s quiet — “I thought that there was another person in the room with me. Or, whenever I was angry, whenever I needed to _punch_ someone, another person took over my body. You’re the one who tries to help me. Always. And you’re the one whispering advice to me in my mind.”

Otabek’s voice is barely audible. The tension between them is so thick and sticky. “What are you trying to say, Yura?”

“I don’t really know,” Yuri sighs. He pulls out his phone and angles it to the sky, holding Otabek close. Otabek doesn’t know how to move his mouth, but Yuri’s already snapped the photo. The two of them share similar grim expressions, but it suits the sombre mood that surrounds them.

“What’s it like, when I become you?” Yuri asks.

Otabek laughs. “I don’t know. The day is completely lost on me.”

“You don’t remember _anything?”_ Yuri says. He leans his head on his hand. “I remember when I need your help.”

“I didn’t know I could ask for your help,” Otabek says as he spins around, sliding onto the railing. “I just know you come at inconvenient times.”

“You should try asking for _my_ help,” Yuri says with a nod.

“When would I need your help?” Otabek scoffs. “When I need to dance my way out of a tense situation?”

Yuri slaps him on the shoulder. “Don’t play fucking smart. I have skills.”

Otabek's mouth quirks, but he tries to stay sullen and sincere. “What are they?”

Yuri takes a deep breath. “I can — make a really nice apple pie.”

“You can make an apple pie?” Otabek’s expression turns into pure amusement. “I’m impressed.”

“Yeah, so if you’re in a life or death situation,” Yuri grins and he nudges Otabek with his shoulder. “You can ask me.”

“I’ll try my best to remember." He looks back at Yuri who's waiting impatiently for him to try. So, he decides to humour him. "What do I do? Ask for your help in my mind?" 

“More or less,” Yuri chuckles. “This all sounds so fucking ridiculous.”

Otabek nods firmly. “Of course.”

“Try asking for my help now,” Yuri says. When Otabek responds, he snaps his fingers in front of his eyes. "C'mon,  _now_. I want to know if it actually works."

“Help with what?” Otabek backing away from the finger snaps. His own fingers drum the railing as he hums to himself, thinking about what he could ask in his mind without it being too  _weird_.

Yuri shrugs. "Whatever the fuck you want."

“In my mind?” Otabek askes, a dubious expression clouding over him.

“Yeah.”

Otabek starts thinking. There’s a million things he wants Yuri to help him with right now, but he doesn’t think it. He just calls for his help in a way that _feels_ stupid because it probably is. For a split second, it’s almost as if the fabric of space time ripples. A hand is on his shoulder and he’s moving forward.

Soon, the distance between them is so minute that Otabek can practically sense Yuri shuddering and waiting in anticipation. Another hand pushes him a little more and he leans in for the kiss, their lips brushing each other. Otabek’s hands grip the sides of Yuri’s face as he slides them down, wrapping them around his waist. Yuri’s arms loop around his neck.

He’s living completely in the moment.

This isn’t the _heady_ , fast paced kiss in the club, but something more intimate, something that he wishes would happen more often.

When they break apart, Yuri swears. “You fucking asked _me_ to help kiss you?”

“No,” Otabek says with a slight shake of his head. “I just asked for your advice. Don’t you remember?”

“It’s _weird_ ,” Yuri says, eyes narrowing. “It was like someone was asking me what I wanted to do and —“

“That’s what happened,” Otabek says with a smile. "That's exactly what happened." 

Yuri raises his fingers to his lips, and traces them again. "What the fuck then. We should start a television show and monetise this shit."

Otabek makes a noise in agreement and soon enough, they lapse into a silence. Otabek has no problem with it but he can sense Yuri getting more tense as each second passes.

“I wish I could know you better,” Yuri says with a sigh.

“But don’t we?” Otabek asks.

“It’s not the same,” Yuri shrugs. “It’s not the fucking same. You know, it’s like when you meet someone or you talk to the same person over and over again for the entire year but when you think about it, you know fuck all about them. I don’t know what’s your favourite colour, I don’t know where you would like to go in the world, I don’t know what your favourite _flower_ is.”

“Lilies,” Otabek replies instantly.

“The fuck?”

“Lilies, they’re my favourite flower."

“Out of all the questions, you answer _that_ one?” Yuri stares at him like he’s mad. But a split second later, a burst of hyena laughter escapes his lips and he’s clutching at his sides. “I was trying to be fucking poetic and you answer ‘my favourite flower are lilies.’”

“Ask me more questions and I’ll ask you some.”

“Are we fucking playing twenty questions? We’re not teenage girls, Beka.”

Otabek shrugs. “Don't we need to be to ask questions to get to know each other?" When Yuri doesn't answer that, he asks, "What’s your favourite fruit?”

“That’s easy, dragon fruit,” Yuri replies, though he seems reluctant to play the game. He poses a question after mulling it over just a little, “You ever taken drugs?”

“A few,” Otabek replies which piques Yuri’s curiosity. “I wouldn’t exactly recommend it. You get the same experience with alcohol. Well, almost.” He mulls over his next question. “Do you think we could ever —“ then he drifts off.

Yuri spits, venomously, causing Otabek to jerk back in surprise. “Finish your fucking sentence.”

Otabek shakes his head. “Forget it.”

“C’mon you fucktard.” Yuri nudges his shoulder. “We could ever fucking _what?”_

“Be together.”

“Of course we fucking can.”

And that's when Otabek finally comes undone.

* * *

 

Yuri has never been so aware of the time. He obsesses over it, looking at his watch as each second passes. With each tick of the hand comes less time he has left to understand _Otabek Altin_. The man who has changed his life. The man who _will_ still change his life.

It's currently one in the afternoon.

“What does this mean?” Yuri asks, holding Otabek’s notebook to the first page.

“Ah,” Otabek says as he looks at his handwriting, clearly in kazakh.

Impatiently, Yuri presses, “Well?”

“It says,” Otabek responds with a deep breath. “It says, _you waltzed through my mind, an explorer of my dawn.”_

Yuri furrows his brows. The man is some sort of poet, despite practicality exuding from him. He’s everything that shouldn’t _exist_. He’s beautiful, he’s _handsome_ and —

Yuri tugs at a bit of stray hair from his messy bun, trying his best to stop his thoughts from straying. It’s seven minutes past one and he’s been obsessing over the time again. Four minutes until the train arrives. Four minutes until Otabek has to leave again, four minutes until the night his life changed forever is over.

“Hey,” Yuri says, voice uncharacteristically meek. He tries to search for any change of emotion behind the aviators, but he doesn’t. Otabek’s expressions are so constant that he feels like nothing can rock or crumble his ship.

Otabek reaches out, a hand tenderly catching Yuri’s jaw. He tilts his head, licking his lips. Then he leans in and Yuri can feel his breath on his lips. Otabek’s mouth reaches his and they kiss and they _kiss_ and they _kiss_.

It’s the same kiss that Yuri wants to experience over and over again. It’s tender and searching. His lips are strangely soft and his tongue licks Yuri’s lips, sealing them until they tingle.

When they break away, Yuri’s still trying to recover. He’s trying to ignore the fact that this had been so public, he’s trying to ignore everything around him. Then, for the first time in a while, he's able to shut out the world and it's completely silent to him, and they’re the only ones alive.

“Are we feeling the same thing?” Otabek asks, his voice also quiet.

Yuri looks at his hands. “No.”

Otabek stiffens at the response. “What?”

“No,” Yuri says but the words are hard. “Yes, maybe. I don’t know, Beka. You’re going to leave again and — “

He can’t do this again. He doesn’t know of he can do long-distance. He doesn’t know if he can spend nights yearning for Otabek’s lips only to have his own company.

“I just want a night like yesterday, I just want that over and over again,” Yuri says.

“I can do that,” Otabek whispers. “Anything for you.”

“Then don’t leave me,” Yuri says, his voice almost breaking.

Otabek smiles. This time he _genuinely_ smiles. The seams of all inhibition break and he’s there, falling further and _further_ into a world he doesn’t know if he’s ready to reach.

“I don’t think I’ll ever be gone,” Otabek replies. He drags the back of his knuckles across Yuri’s face. “As long as this _tether_ we have exists. I don’t think I’ll ever leave you.”

“But I don’t remember what happens. You don’t remember what happens,” Yuri exclaims, his voice getting more desperate. He hates how he’s feeling, he hates how much he’s trying to stay calm. He hates _everything_. Fate is a cruel mistress.

“I’ll be back before you know it.”

Yuri swallows. “You fucking promise?”

“Yeah,” Otabek nods. There’s a certain determination that hardens across his face as his lips curve into an odd smile. “I fucking promise.”

"Just save me," Yuri says, taking a step back from him. He doesn't explain it, he doesn't have to, because it's all in the book. All the spoilers that Otabek wants to avoid is _there_ in his satchel, scrawled in Yuri's handwriting. "Save me when you can."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~the playlist i was listening to while writing this was v angsty.~~  
> 
> [ say hi c: ](http://lumieress.tumblr.com)


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